


Howling at the Moon

by josephina_x



Category: Smallville, Smallville Season 11 (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Werewolves, possibly triggering for attempted rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 17:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/612263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex may be an idiot sometimes, but he's sure as hell nobody's bitch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howling at the Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fruitbat00](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitbat00/gifts).



> Title: Howling at the Moon  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville, Smallville Season 11  
> Pairing: Clark, Lex  
> Rating: R  
> Spoilers: through the "Guardian" arc of Season 11, well prior to the seven-year-jump  
> Word count: 12900+  
> Summary: Lex may be an idiot sometimes, but he's sure as hell nobody's bitch.  
> Warnings: Un-beta'd. May trigger for attempted rape.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> Comments: Yes, please! :)  
> Author's Note: Written for [fruitbat00](http://fruitbat00.livejournal.com) as part of the [Multifandom Gift Exchange 2012](http://multifan-gift.livejournal.com).  
> Prompts: "Vampire or werewolf setting his sights on Lex." and "I do love a good Snark between Lex and Lois. I would love to see them get into and out of trouble without killing each other."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark woke in the middle of the night up to the sound of growling and snarling. It sounded like it was coming from the barn.

Grumbling to himself, he shoved on his boots and trudged down the staircase and out the door.

He picked up the pace when he heard a barking snarl and then a panicked yelp.

"Shelby?" Clark called, inching the barn door open a bit wider. It had been open enough for Shelby to get in, and apparently for whatever else had, too. He frowned and jogged forward quickly as he realized that it wasn't Shelby in trouble but--

Clark sighed and got a good hold of Shelby by the collar, pulling his very enmaddened dog away by the scruff of his neck as he peered down at the poor whimpering bastard curled up on the floor of the otherwise-empty horse stall, and was that a _wolf_?

"Oh, geez," Clark sighed out softly, his breath misting in the cold air. He grimaced and pulled Shelby up to the loft, quietly admonishing him for attacking the newcomer so fiercely, when he realized that at worst his own dog maybe had one or two defensive scratch wounds inflicted upon him, if that, and it didn't sound to his super-hearing that the wolf was going anywhere anytime soon.

"It wasn't causing any trouble, was it? You shouldn't have done that," he scolded softly. "You could've just barked."

Now it was Shelby's turn to whine, and Clark couldn't help but sigh and ruffle his dog's head a bit.

"I'm not all that mad," Clark told him as he chained him up to the staircase, then rose. "Just try and be a little better about how hard you defend and how much you need to, ok? I know you're smarter than that," Clark added as he closed the shutters to the hayloft, then pulled out a couple blankets for his dog. It wasn't all that cold in the barn, but it was still winter, and all.

And then Clark sighed as he trotted down the stairs, hand trailing the railing as he made his way back to the horse stall.

The wolf was still there, still backed into a corner, still whining, but a lot more softly, now. It was panting heavily, like it had been running a long time before it had gotten here, and it really wasn't looking too good...

And what the heck was a wolf doing here, anyway? There weren't any wolves in Kansas. The last wolf he'd run across was really Kyla and what the heck would any of the Kawatche shapeshifters be doing here?

...Oh, _right_.

Clark sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

And then Clark blushed as he realized that a person, not an animal, was getting an eyeful of him in his boxers, boots, and a ratty old t-shirt. And nothing else.

He promptly forgot to worry about his own state of undress when he crouched down -- slowly, carefully, trying not to startle it with sudden movements -- and he realized that the wolf-person actually had some pretty bad wounds.

Well, there was nothing for it.

He sighed and backed out of the stall, grabbed a horse blanket, and then walked right up to the newcomer.

"Hey, hey, just relax," Clark found himself having to say, as the poor bastard _flinched_ away from him, and what the heck had happened to it, anyway? It couldn't have been all Shelby.

He more-or-less ignored how the wolf kicked out a bit and whined and tried to scrabble about as Clark scooped it up in the blanket, arms under the furry legs and carried the wolf in his arms out of the barn and into the night.

More whining, and Clark found himself talking to the wolf in reassuring tones about how he wasn't going to hurt it, he was just going to get it inside and help, that it'd be safe and warm soon...

It took a lot of careful cleaning and bandaging and a _lot_ of petting before the wolf settled into the couch properly, and Clark wasn't entirely sure if the flinching was lessening because it was calming down, or just too tired to fight back anymore.

Honestly, it was bad enough that Clark was actually starting to wonder if the wolf might be really only just an animal after all.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Morning came, and Clark yawned, sighed, and dressed before trudging down the staircase.

He was greeted to the sight of a very bald, very naked Lex Luthor stretched out across his couch.

Huh.

...Clark guessed it was a good thing he'd put down the horse blanket, first.

Lex twitched and woke as Clark ventured farther into the room, and Clark was about to frown and give him a hard time, right up until he realized how confused Luthor looked, and saw that the bandages really were in the same place on his hind leg -- er, right thigh -- as the wolf had had last night, and that that bite mark across his left shoulder did _not_ look all that great. Or Shelby-inflicted.

So instead he just crossed his arms and waited for Luthor to lever himself up, not really looking any less confused as he stared about at the room, and then Clark cleared his throat.

Lex nearly wrenched his head turning it about to place the source of the noise, and looked up at him, startled, and his eyes refocused. Properly. After a handful of very long seconds.

"So," Clark started, "I remember you having a lot more grey fur last night."

"I--" Lex said blankly.

Clark waited.

"I..." Lex started, trying again, and when he glanced around the room, Clark realized he was exhibiting the same hunted, haunted look as he'd had last night, and how had he not recognized Lex by his eyes before?

...Oh, right, maybe because they were a little dull, and not really tracking properly. He'd never seen Lex this fuzzy before. Or was it 'this shocky'?

Oh, yeah, and that whole Lex-being-a- _girl_ -wolf thing.

But honestly, that was _not_ really the main problem here, as completely messed up as that was -- seriously, a _female_ wolf? what the hell? -- and Clark decided that, yes, something was really wrong, when it was only, after about three minutes into their not-very-intellectually-stimulating interaction, that Lex finally seemed to realize he was completely naked.

"I--" he said, seeming slightly panicked for some reason as he stared down at himself and fingered at his chest in a twitching half-conscious movement.

Clark sighed, took pity on the bald billionaire, and grabbed up the quilt from the back of the couch. He surreptitiously tossed it over Lex's shoulders, then headed off into the kitchen.

"What do you want for breakfast?" he called out, back over his shoulder, but Lex just seemed to be staring about after him, wavering and confused still, so Clark just decided on bacon and eggs for them both and got down to it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"You remember what happened?" Clark asked him after he'd rustled up some old clothing for him that almost actually fit, had gotten him up into the shower -- well, bath, given his leg situation -- and finally plonked him down in a chair at the kitchen table with some halfway-decent food in front of him.

"I--" Lex said, staring down at his plate. Clark was about to sigh, but then he heard, "I think she wasn't happy with me."

"Who?" Clark asked, straightening, because now they were finally getting somewhere.

Lex winced and looked away. It was atypical behavior for him, at least before last night.

"The gypsy," he said quietly.

"Why were you talking to a gypsy?" Clark asked, frowning.

And then Clark was treated to a muttered, shame-faced and vague tale about a dead woman who had been in Lex's head and trying to take over his body -- and beginning to succeed -- and how Lex had been running out of options, desperate -- though he didn't use the word -- and...

"--so, wait, this gypsy got her out of your head, and this _woman_ caused a bunch of trouble, but this gypsy took it out on _you?_ " Clark re-summarized. That didn't seem fair.

"Well, she might've gone after Tess, too," Lex admitted. "I don't really remember..." he mumbled, hunching his shoulders, which was just weird to see, and...

Woah. --Hold on, there! "What do you mean, _Tess?_ Like, Tess _Mercer?_ Your half-sister, Tess? Tess was the woman inside your head?" Because, holy shit! And, wait-- "Tess is alive again, now?"

"Unless the gypsy got her... and did something to her, yes," Lex muttered angrily, stabbing at his eggs.

"Did she try to kill you?" Clark asked, and then, remember this was _Lex_ he was talking with, even if it was a memoryless one, clarified that with: "Tess, I mean?" Because people taking things out on Lex tended to be deadly a little more than half the time, at least in his previous incarnation.

"Yes. No. --Maybe." Lex stopped and growled a little under his breath in frustration.

Clark's head perked up as Lex rubbed at his throat absently, and Clark wondered if Lex realized how wolflike he'd actually sounded just then.

"You know you're acting more like a wolf now than you were when you were an actual wolf, right?" Clark informed him. "...Or at least had a wolf-body?"

Lex looked up at him, wide-eyed and a little blankly.

"Just saying," Clark muttered with a slight sigh.

And then Clark had to suffer through Lex frowning at him through the rest of his meal, which seemed to involve a lot more stabbing at his plate than necessary.

Clark decided that from now on he'd only make sausages. Bacon and finger-food eating were _clearly_ a skill set beyond Lex, these days.

...Not that that was really any different from before. Sure, Lex talked a great game about hotdogs and salty chips, but boy that mustard really went for his ties at least as badly as it did for anybody else. So, Clark figured he shouldn't be too surprised that Lex stuck to a knife and fork these days, too.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Ugh -- no, Lois," Clark said after opening the front door -- well, kicking it half-open after he'd unlocked it, then kicking it closed behind him -- gently -- "I haven't gotten to that yet, I've been busy with... yeah, our werewolf-ish guest is staying here, of course he is. --I'm not gonna _kick_ him--" Clark glanced up and realized Lex was curled up on the couch. Huh. He would've thought Luthor would've left after... well, whatever. "--out. Wow, ok, he's actually still in the living room. Asleep, even, I think," Clark added more quietly, toeing off his boots and moving down the hallway towards the kitchen, instead of cutting through the living room like he usually did.

He set the two bags of groceries down on the kitchen table carefully and said in a half-hushed tone, "Yeah, no, it looks like it was one freaking messed up mistake. Lex mentioned something about her starting to take control of his body -- I think maybe she did that halfway through whatever split-off thing the gypsy arranged with her magic. He ended up in the female body while Tess ended up in the m--" Clark had to cringe and pull the phone away from his ear at the sudden burst of hysterical laughter over the line. Some days it didn't pay to have super-hearing.

After enduring more than a few off-color jokes about Tess now being the Luthor with the balls in the family, and Lex being her bitch, Clark said in an angry, hushed tone, "Geezus, Lois, he's not a girl, just a girl- _wolf_." He was barely able to survive a few more stabs at Lex's expense before he tried, long-suffering, "...Lois. ...Lois, it isn't funny," because it really wasn't. "Tess was supposed to get the option of joining the pack or not, because they're all-male."

At Lois' angry intake of breath, he added quickly, " _Choice_ , Lois, and I believe the gypsy woman who was in charge of looking out for them, and the few Tess didn't turn to her side, when they told me what happened." Clark grimaced as he relayed to a quieting Lois what he'd found out when he'd backtraced Lex's trail to its origin, and the frantic-looking group he'd encountered there and what he'd found out from them. He'd gotten a half-hysterical earful on how Lex had planned himself on not joining the pack, just turning for the moment and finding a way to either turn back or cope, because that would have upset the balance of power. Tess, as a female, was supposed to have had the option of leading the pack as alpha-female, alongside the males, if she wanted.

Apparently, the whole 'turning into a werewolf for the first time' thing involved some sort of weird ritualistic birth-magic, so the first change could be leveraged -- and had been -- to make the whole magical body- and mind-splitting procedure much, much safer than it would have been otherwise. So, that had been the deal -- stability for the gypsy's charges and monetary compensation to help care for them, as payment for her splitting magic, and an added bonus to the pack of the possibility of their wooing Tess in return for their help by making the change happen in as safe and controlled a setting as possible -- a large field just a few miles outside of Metropolis.

...But that hadn't been what had happened. Instead, Tess had ended up in the wrong, 'dominant' body, gone all alpha-male, and had taken over the entire pack alarmingly quickly. She had then convinced the petty, slathering, worst males of the lot of them that they shouldn't _have_ to behave _civilized_ over the proferred female being dangled in front of their faces so tantalizingly, that instead they could -- _should_ , if they were able -- just go ahead and _take_ whatever they wanted...

...and Lex had been on the run of his life.

The very few weres that hadn't gone along with it had been promptly torn half-apart and excommunicated from the 'tribe' on the spot -- yeah, a really wonderful introduction to the pack, right there. To make matters worse, apparently Lex had been so out of it at the time that he hadn't understood properly what was happening, and had run away from the very-angry (just not at him) gypsy in fear, instead of taking shelter in her caravan-house. ...which the gypsy was still cursing in several languages over after the fact, because apparently females tended to end up more disoriented and in less control after the change than males generally did, and Lex, being male but stuck in an unfamiliar female body that was _supposed_ to have gone to his half-sister, must have been even less able to think clearly.

Clark, needing to know, had taken a closer look at the bloody trail Lex had made during his flight on his way back to the farm -- and yes, there had been blood, a frightening amount of it when stretched over the distance, but it looked as though it had mainly been from wounds received before he had been able to run, during his what had surely been a terror-filled flight.

"...You know, Smallville," Lois said in measured tones after a long pause, "I may really hate Luthor's guts and all, and I trust him about as much as a snake in the grass that's twice as venomous..." Clark heard her stop and grimace over the line. "But even _I_ wouldn't wish a gang-rape on the guy, animal or otherwise. ...Hell, that'd probably just send him even more over the edge into mass-murder and villainy, so I'm justified, even," she muttered at the last.

Clark sighed tiredly and ran a hand through his hair. "Well, I'm pretty sure _that_ didn't happen, at least," he said in a relieved rush. "It didn't look like he got slammed into or fell and scrabbled about much at any point along his trail near the rest of the group, once he managed to get away from them in-camp. And the gypsy kept anything fatal or worse from happening in-camp ...though she was apparently a little _too_ liberal in her use of broom," Clark ended with a wince, because if she _hadn't_ been, Lex might not have run off like that. He might have stayed instead of letting himself be scared off, if he hadn't been on the receiving end of one too many of those desperate swattings, as unintentional as it must have been.

"I can't believe he ended up at the farm," Lois said. "Are you sure he didn't do it intentionally?" And Clark knew what she was really asking. _Does he know who you are?_ really didn't need to be said.

"I don't think so," Clark reassured her. "It looked like they were trying to corral him from the tracks, but he just managed to slip through several times," though how Lex had managed on a hurt leg Clark didn't know or want to contemplate. "They mostly peeled off once he hit the town limits," Clark told her. "The last two stopped at about the boundary of the farm, which is a little weird," he admitted. "They paced back and forth a couple times, from the tracks -- it looked like they were trying to decide whether to cross the fence or not, and then left. --I don't think Tess was able to keep up," he added, because he knew _she_ wouldn't have stopped -- he knew how she felt about him. The both of them. The memory-drug had been proof enough of that.

Hell, the whole alien-jesus thing _still_ made him squeamish. And a little mad. He really hoped the rest of her pack kept her the hell away from the farm. He knew _he_ sure wouldn't be in a mood to put up with anything from her or the lot of them if they tried to get at Lex while he was here.

"So the weres were smart enough to not want to mess with Smallville?" Lois said in a teasing tone, and Clark rolled his eyes as he began to unpack the grocery bags at normal speed.

"I guess," Clark said. "Or maybe Shelby's scent was too thick on the ground. Who knows?"

"Well, I guess that explains Tess' reappearance and her new boy-man bodyguard pack," Lois said with amusement, undercut with tamped-down anger.

Clark blinked. "What?" he asked, startled.

"See, Smallville? This is what happens when you're out of town for a day!" Lois teased, though without her usual good-humor, before she tersely proceeded to explain. "Tess made a TV appearance on the steps of LexCorp this morning: short-notice press conference. She all-but-said that Lex was down-and-out 'again', recuperation period unknown, and that she'd be taking over the reins _again_." _And we all know what that means_ was implied. "Everybody's going crazy with speculation, and whether or not he's actually going full-on recluse or if Tess just had him murdered by her new feral Twilight-husky boy-band, or what."

Clark sighed again, because his own absence couldn't be helped. He'd _had_ to take the week off to deal with the farm. After what his mom had said about the farm sale, he'd felt guilty and all, but he'd still not felt in good conscience that he could just take back the contract. But, he _did_ ask the buyers if they'd be willing to modify the final deal. They'd originally been given a year to get together the entire rest of the funds; what Clark had amended the contract to include was an agreement that, if before the year was out, they changed their minds about buying the place, they could back out on it, no-penalty, and they'd only have to pay for the months that they'd lived on the farm property for a monthly fee agreed upon in-advance. It had actually been a fair deal -- more than fair, considering this was Smallville, home of the weird, that just didn't agree with some people -- and Clark felt a little bad that he hadn't even thought of it until he'd been wracking his brain for other options.

...And it was a good thing that he had, too, because the family had only lasted it out for barely ten months. They'd been looking more than a little shell-shocked on the way out as they'd handed the keys back over to Clark on the way out the door the previous afternoon. Clark wondered a little what it had been that had put them off so badly, but they had looked so twitchy and high-strung that he'd thought better than to ask. ...Maybe he could ask Chloe's new idol-worshipping Torch crew. They'd certainly seemed on top of all the latest weirdness in town when the two of them had visited last.

"Well, I don't know what Lex wants to do, but the gypsy woman said that it might take him a while to handle the changes properly, that it varies from person to person, and with the whole wolf-gender-swap thing going on on top of everything else... even the gypsy has no idea how long it's gonna take," Clark told her honestly. "He was pretty out of it this morning, but I don't know if that was more from the blood loss and his injuries, or the shock of being chased like that, or what." Clark scratched the back of his neck. "I don't think he'll be able to go back to normal" -- _for a Lex-given definition of normal_ \-- "until he manages to settle out in the were-change stuff, first, though." It was apparently far more dangerous to try and remove the so-called shape-changing 'curse' if a body didn't -- because without the control to force a change, pushing it all to the forefront at once, purposefully, during the entire removal process, it wouldn't be 'concentrated' enough to extract. Little bits and strands of pieces of it might be left behind, instead of removed all in one go, otherwise. "Assuming he wants to get rid of it, anyway," Clark added, not thinking, until he heard Lois' startled laugh and realized that would mean Lex spending a good many nights as a girl... wolf. Which... yeah. Probably was not on the bald billionaire's list of things to-do.

"Well, you be careful out there, Smallville," Lois told him. "Last thing I need is you getting bit or scratched or whatever and ending up all furry odd-nights," she said lightly.

"It's not that kind of magic, Lois," Clark said with a smile, meaning _it doesn't work that way_.

"Whatever. Just be careful?"

"I will," Clark promised. "Love you."

"You, too, Smallville," Lois said warmly. "Now let me go see if I can't sink my _own_ teeth into Mercer and what's she's doing," _and why she didn't contact the League, first_ , Clark didn't need mind-reading powers to pick up, "while you get the farm back in working order, and figure out what to do with it and all," Lois ended with what was probably an eyeroll.

Clark smiled softly. "Well, providence," he said, thinking that Lex could probably use a place to run nights, so it was probably a good thing overall, timing-wise. There were no more cows on the premises -- no herd animals at all -- so it'd be hard for him to get into trouble, and once Clark was done with them all the fences would be firm and strong. Everything ought to be fine ...so long as Clark could convince Shelby to get along with Lex, anyway.

Lois gave a snort. " 'Providence', says _you_ ," she teased. "I'd be going crazy over there myself, and you know it," she added with a small laugh before hanging up, and Clark couldn't help but shake his head as he set down the cellphone, because, yeah, she'd gone more than a little stir-crazy around the farm even those few days they'd been laid off from the Daily Planet. He knew exactly what she meant, having seen it in-action once before.

Clark had about a half-minute of silence as he finished unpacking the groceries he'd gotten, after he'd made it back to the edge of the property. He'd decided to grab a few extra things from the store earlier than later, having an unexpected and possibly-ravenous guest in the farmhouse -- the gypsy had said that Lex would need to eat in both forms to stay healthy, apparently, and he was already thin enough as it was -- since it was finally late enough in the morning that the stores had actually been open again. And then--

"So, when are you going to kill me?" Clark heard from the living room, and he looked up in shock to see Lex staring at him, expressionless, sitting on the couch -- and who knew when he'd woken up.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"What?" Clark said, sounding shocked, but Lex certainly wasn't fooled by it. Much. Maybe.

"When are you going to kill me?" Lex repeated, because, really, he'd like to know -- preferably soon, thanks. He didn't want to waste time worrying about the _when_ , so he could just focus on enjoying the in-between he had left ...if he could.

"I'm not going to kill you!" Clark exclaimed, stomping around the side of the kitchen table, and it took all Lex had not to wince away.

...which apparently wasn't enough, if the way Kent came to a screeching halt and stared at him was any indication.

"Look," Clark said finally, "how much of that conversation did you hear?" apparently trying to change the subject.

"All of it," Lex told him thinly. "I wasn't asleep when you came in," he informed him, then repeated, "So when _are_ you going to kill me?" again for good measure, crossing his arms, because some things just came naturally in threes.

Clark just sighed -- or groaned -- and rolled his eyes. "I think I may regret asking this," Clark said in a long-suffering tone, "but _why_ do you think I'm going to kill you?"

"Because you're Superman, and I'm me," Lex informed him matter-of-factly.

There was a long pause.

"You know, I thought you were going to say something stupid about how you're a werewolf now, and... farmers and torches and pitchforks or something," Clark said faintly.

It suddenly occured to Lex that Kent may not have ever realized that Lex had known who he was. (This, quite frankly, really boggled his mind.)

It also belatedly occurred to him that knowing Superman's secret identity -- and admitting it instead of keeping him guessing -- might actually be just the sort of thing that might finally get him killed in a more immediate-like fashion, especially considering how freaked out Kent was looking at the proclamation as it percolated in his tri-color-obsessed brain.

Well. Yay him.

"I'm not S--" Clark started, then froze as a look of utter horror slowly waxed in full ascendance across his face. "--Oh, _goddamnit_ ," Clark ended in a dark mutter, scrubbing at his face. "Stupid glasses," he mumbled into his hands, uttered like an curse.

...Oh. Yes. Kent wasn't wearing any spectacles at present, was he?

"Don't be ridiculous," Lex scoffed. And, feeling a bit contrary -- and not too opposed to going down with a little sass before getting himself murdered, at the very least -- he added, "I've known ever since you clapped out my window." Idiot.

...And for some reason, this seemed to be a license for Kent to go all wide-eyed and shocked-looking.

"What!?!" Kent proclaimed.

"Your glasses don't do shit for you," Lex informed him, as if he were slow of mind.

"But-- but--" Kent stammered.

"They certainly don't hide the color or shape of your eyes," Lex continued.

"But-- but--" Clark stammered half-incoherently, then stopped, stunned, and vaguely gestured upwards, almost-hopefully. "...Hair--?"

" _'But'_ \-- _'but'_ \--" Lex mocked. "It's just a fucking hairstyle, Kent!" How ludicrous was that, anyway? "It's not as though that changes the bone structure of your face, _or_ your skin tone," he added with a sneer, because, really, how stupid did he think Lex was? He'd seen him up-close-and-personal on numerous occasions. How the hell could Lex have recognized him? The question should have been how the hell could he _not_ have possibly done so!

"My costume--"

"Is about as eye-meltingly bad on you as your ill-fitting business suits," Lex proceeded to inform him, and he _almost_ complained about the flannel and jeans the man was currently sporting, but goddamn it, the flannel was actually _better_ on him than the rest of it, lord help them all! --Not that that was saying much...

"But you told me about the satellites!" Clark burst out. "Before they came online!"

 _No, I told you right before they finished calibrating and I got a singular tracking lock on you._ Lex pointedly did _not_ roll his eyes at the man, no matter how much he wanted to. "It was a friendly nemesis-to-nemesis warning," Lex explained, as if to a child. "Common courtesy. Surely you've heard of it?"

Clark just stared at him.

"The Chinese had been particularly rabid about trying to track your every move before that point," Lex added. Kent wasn't exactly very forgiving of what the Western hemisphere considered barbaric policies in-uniform, and so Lex understood perfectly why those censoring, disappear-people-in-the-middle-of-the-night, bastion of human-rights violations regimes with significant resources might be just a bit afraid of him, to the point of their current rather rabid and panicked lather. "I just thought it might be prudent to apply the object lesson sooner rather than too late." Idiot.

Lex left out the part about how the astronauts had been exposed to almost the same dose levels as he had been, and that the calibration had involved telling them _apart_ \-- he'd been able to track all of them from the get-go, or thereabouts. Checking the positional logs after the fact to confirm an inordinate amount of time spent below sea level in the bowels of the Daily Planet building in the preceeding few hours or so wasn't really cheating when he already knew who Superman was, after all. Deleting them and salting the hard drives hadn't been much of a decision, considering who tended to break into-- ahem, _'audit'_ his computer systems on a semi-regular basis. (Stupid League. Stupid Queens.)

"What??" Clark said, sounding shocked. "But-- The Chinese--" Then he seemed to regroup and focus on Lex over the looming threat of a two-billion-strong Communist regime on the opposite side of the planet -- because, really, _that_ was wise. "...Wait, you really knew since--?" Kent frowned, finally seeming to start to come out of his shock. "You never said anything! How--"

"I took one goddamn look at you and knew," _you fool_ , Lex thought derisively, starting to wonder -- _why_ exactly was he afraid of the man, again? ...Oh, right. He was able to move planets out of various orbits in five minutes or less, while-you-wait, the big, scary, faster-than-light, only-sometimes-floating jerk. --Well, it was _understandably_ a little hard to keep track of that, what with Kent acting all... "You came up and stared me right in the face. You didn't even try to disguise yourself _at all_ ," he said with great disgust because, god, he'd put so much time and so many resources into trying to figure it out for _months_ before that, and all it had taken had been one face-to-face and fairly hostile meet-and-greet and... "Did I not use enough sarcasm when I 'asked' you whether we'd ever met before?" Lex had thought it quite obvious. As obvious as Clark standing right in front of him with no mask on had been, anyway -- though apparently that was highly debatable for some.

"oh..." Clark said quietly, staring at him.

Lex sighed in annoyance, and leaned to his right, letting his side come fully in-contact with the back cushions, up against the couch.

"So, are you going to kill me now, or not?" Lex asked peevishly, waving a hand. "A timetable would be nice."

In response, Clark just stared at him for awhile, and then turned and walked down the hallway and out the front door. The damnable, annoying being.

I mean, come on! Was it _really_ so much to ask for a little certainty in his life? Really?!

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark got to mending fences, and wondered, and worried, and wondered again about the why of things.

In particular, the _why_ of _why hasn't Lex told anyone that Clark Kent is Superman?_

...Frankly, he was a little afraid that the answer might be, _he had_.

He sighed and shook his head as he realized he was stalling. He'd already fed Shelby, and let him loose outside -- the family who'd moved in had gotten rid of the doggy doors on the farmhouse, so Shelby couldn't get in where Lex was unless he was let in -- and this was Clark's third circuit of the back forty's fence. He'd had no reason to hold back on using his powers, worrying about Lex finding out and raising an eyebrow or two, what with Lex _already knowing about them_.

After all, it wasn't like Lex would see him using 'superpowers' and suddenly think 'alien' ...right?

So Clark finally screwed up his courage and zipped his way back to the farmhouse.

He had a feeling that something was wrong when he opened the door and Lex nearly _jumped out of his skin_ from where he was -- still -- sitting on the couch. It looked like he hadn't gotten up and moved much around the farmhouse after the discussion following Clark's phone call, if he'd gotten up at all... which was surprising. His heart rate was also...

"Le-- Luthor," Clark said slowly, wondering what was up with him. First Lex had been almost completely out of it at breakfast, and really not his usual self -- not post-memory-loss, nor pre-loss either -- and then he'd acted a _lot_ like his 'normal' self, these days, but with even more impugnity. But now he was... _jittery?_ Sure, Clark could understand Lex being thrown by the werewolf bit, especially given the whole 'doesn't remember Smallville' thing, but he'd seemed back to his old new-self for a while there. "What's going on?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

"Where did you _go?_ " Lex demanded in return, hands clenched in the blanket he had wrapped around him, fists so tightly closed his knuckles were white. So was the visible ring around his wide, wide and searching eyes, that were flitting from object to object around the room, before inevitably coming back to him and then skipping away again.

"I went out to the fields," Clark said slowly, because it wasn't like he was required to report in to Lex, or anything. He'd finally managed to get rid of that radioactive isotope trace a few weeks ago, for a start, and that had not been fun -- not when Lex had gotten him painted with it, and not in burning it out of him, up close and really way too personal with the sun, even for him.

"--Why?" Lex bit out, starting to spend more time and attention on Clark than anything else in the room.

Clark's frown deepened. "Because I had work to do." ...Was Lex actually _rocking himself slightly?_ What had happened while he'd been away? He hadn't heard anybody come up to the farmhouse; it had been pretty quiet, actually.

" _You never answered my question!!_ " Lex spat out, giving him a full-on glare... except the effect was rather ruined by the white sclera of his eyes _still_ clearly visible all the way around his irises.

Ok, wow, Lex was _seriously_ on edge. ...And apparently still mad about... "--I already told you, I'm not going to kill you!"

"Yes, you are!" Lex exclaimed, and he ducked his head a little after saying it, but at least he didn't look **happy** about the idea.

"No, I'm-- _ugh_." Clark threw up his hands and gave up. He completely ignored how Lex's shoulders were bunching up -- _completely_ out of character for him -- as he shut the door, clomped over, and dropped down onto the couch next to him.

"Are you going to tell me what's really bothering you?" Clark asked with a sigh as he ran a hand over his face, because if _that_ was what was making Lex all ansty... well, then he would've been antsy before, not well-nigh-on belligerent. So, obviously, it had to be something else.

And hey, Clark must've finally got through to him, because Lex went completely still.

...Even if his eyes were still bouncing around a bit, and he wasn't exactly looking any calmer, just more controlled -- barely -- Lex still seemed to be thinking more than he had been a few seconds ago, and Clark didn't really like the idea of Luthor in a mindless panic, not one bit.

"It's too quiet," Lex stated tonelessly after awhile, and it took Clark a bit to make the connection.

"I thought you'd wanted Tess out of your head?" Clark said, because getting the reference didn't mean he'd understood it.

"I do! Did. --Do," Lex said with a great deal of frustration. He shook his head. "I have her out. I _wanted_ her out. I-- I'm g-gla-ad, she's out," he said with a stutter, which had Clark staring at him full-on, because Lex _never_ did that.

"W-what?" Lex breathed out, going a little pale and leaning back, away from Clark, eyes going a little wider and blanket clutched just that much tighter.

"You're _stammering_ ," Clark told him, wondering if Lex hadn't been paying attention to himself, somehow.

"I've had a bad day!" Lex griitted out through clenched teeth, pulling back even farther.

"Yeah, I was kinda able to tell from the bite marks," Clark said with an eyeroll, but at least Lex was getting angry. An angry Lex was better than a scared one.

And then something occurred to him.

"Do you know where Tess is?" Clark asked him.

Lex _flinched_.

...Oh.

"She's in Metropolis," Clark told him. "She's not anywhere nearby."

"It's not as though I need to know where she is at all times, Kent!" Lex snapped out. "I wasn't able to tell in the beginning, either, and I was able to function perfectly well not knowing when she'd pop up or where."

Oh.

_Oh._

...Well, _shit_.

"And I don't need your help!" Lex added viciously, for good measure, turning sideways and leveling another glare at Clark.

...Except that the anger was masking something else, and Clark could _hear_ how his heart-rate had picked up.

"I am _not_ going to let Tess hurt you -- understand?" Clark said adamantly, placing his hands on Lex's shoulders and pulling him back towards him, staring down into his eyes.

Lex was shivering under his hands as he stared up at Clark.

Clark had to bite back his automatic retort of _Lex, just tell me what's wrong so I can fix it!_ ...It was harder than it should have been.

"I'm going back to Metropolis," Lex stated, jerking away, and Clark wondered what he'd done wrong as he covered a wince.

...and what was so bad that he would he want to go running headfirst _into_ danger, instead? " _Tess_ is in Metropolis," Clark reminded him.

"Yes, thank you, I heard you the first time! I have no problems with my short-term memory!" Lex spat out as he struggled with the blanket. ...His primary problem might have been that he didn't seem to want to actually let go of it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lex didn't know what he wanted.

...No, that was a lie -- Lex knew what he wanted, he just had no idea how to go about getting it. Kent certainly wasn't going to help him get it.

He wanted Tess out of his hair-- _fur_ , he wanted Tess out of his fur and -- fuck it all, she was _still_ stealing his shit! That was supposed to be _his_ wolf-body, damn it! Were all little sisters like this, or just the half-Luthor ones?!

Stupid Tess, with her stupid grating voice and her stupid ghost-self, couldn't even die properly on him and _stay dead_. She'd yelled at him, lectured him on how he was such a horrible person -- without actually _saying anything_ , and damn it couldn't she at least accidentally drop a little more intel when she was doing so, when he was being so accommodating? --She'd hit him the once by accident, and probably would have done more on purpose if she hadn't feared his idea of retribution in return. Instead, she'd opted for berating him some more, and trying to take control of his body when he was asleep. Now, how was that fair? Either he was Lex Luthor, and she should back the hell off for fear of what he'd do, or he was a Frankenstein's amalgamation of clone parts that _wasn't_ him, and shouldn't be held responsible for what he couldn't remember. She couldn't have it both ways!

It wasn't his fault that he'd killed Tess when he'd had his memories, _especially_ if he wasn't actually him -- and that didn't even touch upon whether or not she had deserved it. ...Though, truth be told, Lex felt fully justified in whatever he must've done to piss her off so badly. _Clearly_ the dying thing couldn't be all of it, because he'd died, too, and he'd been having to share a body with someone he deemed wholly unpleasant, too, and _he_ wasn't the one running around trying for some ultimate revenge like a crackhead after a fix with several screws loose upstairs, besides.

He hardly blamed her for turning the pack against him, though -- after all, she'd probably thought he'd do the same to her, and had obviously trying to operate from a position of strength. She might not have had a choice, either -- he hadn't exactly explained the situation to her before she'd jumped in, and throwing him to the wolves might've been the only way to secure her position in the group at the head of it -- there was no way that she could have fought every single one of them for it, so the distraction of bread and circuses and attempted gang-rape had been on the menu for the evening. So really, all-in-all, that bit of it hardly registered for him.

But, back to what he wanted, worse than wanting Tess to get a fully-deserved beatdown, he wanted some _goddamn sound_. This place was a fucking tomb, wherever the hell this was. It was making him twitchy as fuck-all.

There were no traffic sounds, no cars, no city-murmur, no roar of life. What few things he did hear were noises as foreign to him as those weird little candy-sticks he'd seen sitting in a small metal container at the nurse's station during his last visit to his neurologist at the hospital. Apparently those were supposed to be some type of food, or dessert, or treat of some kind. ...Why people didn't just eat sugar directly when they wanted to do so, he had yet to determine.

He let out a shuddering sigh and quit fighting the blanket that was wrapped in a half-tangled mess about his person. Frankly, he didn't really want to let go of it; it was a cocoon of warmth and soft fabric and... and _fluffiness_ , and he had the sneaking suspicion that he might, unreasonably, prefer it somehow to his usual silk-and-satin sheets, which was just an obscene thought, given his level of wealth.

But, getting back to the problems facing him: yes, it was just too quiet, but, even worse, there was nobody else around -- nobody but Kent, who disappeared on him for hours at a time -- and Lex was discovering that he absolutely _hated_ being alone. Even Kent was better than nothing, and that just clinched it for him, because Superman was just _awful_ to be around -- a glorified, hero-worshipped, hypocritical, thoughtless, property-damage-wreaking, terrifying, superpowered mess.

So he settled for perching on the edge of the couch instead of trying to disentangle himself from the blanket, and continued letting the self-proclaimed Hero keep on sitting next to him nearby. ...Though, come to think of it, he wasn't really sure about the self-proclaimed part anymore. Did it really count when it was Clark Kent talking about Superman? Had he ever done anything other than quote others to that effect? ...After making an effort to recall them properly, when he reviewed what he remembered, Kent's articles about himself were rather few and far-between, and actually tended to be somewhat more critical than the usual Daily Planet drivel. How strange. One would think he'd be smart enough to take advantage of his own--

\--Aaaaagh, what the hell was Kent doing?!? Was it an attack? --It had to be an attack! He was going to _squeeze the life out of him_ \-- what a **horrible** way to die! -- and-- and-- and...

Uh...

...this wasn't actually hurting or anything, Kent's arms were just sort of... _around_ him, and, uh, not squeezing all that hard, wow, Superman was _really_ bad at this...

...and really warm...

...mmmmmm...

\--Wait, no, it had to be a trap! Yes! He was trying to trick Lex into letting his guard down! Any second now Kent was going to _get_ him! ...Well, he'd show him -- he'd _pretend_ to let down his guard, and then when Kent tried something, he'd fight back when Kent least expected it!

Any second now!

...

Any second now.

...

Aaaany second.

...

...God, he was _really warm_.

...mmmmmmmmmmmm...

~*~*~*~*~*~

Clark wasn't surprised when Lex struggled in his arms, twisting and kicking out ...well, as much as he could when he'd managed to get himself all tangled up in the blanket he still had a death grip on, anyway. He hadn't really thought that trying to drag Lex back towards him so he couldn't fall off the side and whack his head on the floor would go over well. He especially wasn't about to let Lex run off when his leg still wasn't in great shape. Lex had never liked being coddled, or told he couldn't do something, so the fight he had on his hands wasn't a surprise at all.

No, what surprised him was when Lex sort-of collapsed for a bit, then struggled some more, then collapsed again, then practically _melted_ in his arms as he let out a long, slow sigh that ended in something almost like a whine.

Because... _wow_.

Clark carefully, experimentally pulled him a little closer, and got the same response -- struggle, collapse, struggle, collapse, total relaxation -- in record time, and had to stifle a laugh because the way he was acting, a body would think that Lex didn't know what a hug was.

...

...Clark may have to kill somebody. He wasn't sure who. Just... somebody.

Clark grumbled to himself a little, and made an executive decision: Lex had had a really crappy twenty-four hours and was in serious need of some cuddle therapy; Clark could and would _totally_ do that.

So he did that.

It went over _much_ better than he'd thought it would.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Clark."

"Mmph."

"Smallville, c'mon." He felt a poke in his shoulder.

"...Mmm?"

Clark heard a soft whimpering noise and he blinked open his eyes.

He was greeted by a mass of grey fur across his vision.

Oh, right. ...Huh. He must've fallen asleep with Lex on the couch. Oops.

Clark slowly disentangled his arms from around Lex's girl-wolf body and levered himself up on one elbow. He ran a hand through his hair and glanced up to see Lois standing behind the couch looking down at the two of them sternly, though her eyes were sparkling with amusement. So, he wasn't in trouble, at least.

He gave her a small smile back and pushed himself upright with a slight sigh, slowly stretching and enjoying the sensation. He glanced over at the window and saw that the sun had gone down; it was night-time. Well, that explained why Lex was a wolf again, at least.

"Didn't think you were coming down here," Clark murmured to his fiance, as she leaned over the back of the couch and gave him a peck on the cheek.

"Yeah, well, I thought about it, and realized what trouble the two of you would probably get into if I left you alone together," Lois said, and, yeah, considering what things had been like when Lex had been in Smallville the first time around, he couldn't blame her. It would be kind of nice to have Lois around to help bail them out, as embarrassing as that might end up being.

"So, I figured I might as well be in town for the show, and get to see it up close and personal when everything goes to hell and back," she ended with a sideways smile as she headed for the fridge. "You still kind of suck at writing up articles about yourself, you know."

Clark blinked at her as he watched her walk away, then started to grin.

Lex rolled his ('her') eyes and huffed out a quiet snort, dropping his head down on his paws.

"I heard that!" Lois called from the kitchen.

Lex barely dignified that with a tail squish.

"C'mon," Clark said, patting Lex carefully on his unmauled shoulder, and he began to help Lex out of the slightly-oversized clothing that was hanging off of him, now that he was in wolf-form.

Lex looked up at him in confusion and started to stand up on the couch cushions, but winced and whimpered, collapsing back on his belly on the couch almost immediately.

"Geez, Lex," Clark chided, getting him laid out on his side. "Your paw pads are still practically shredded. Why'd you do that?" Then he caught how Lex was looking at his front paws in confusion. "Wait, didn't Myra tell you about the whole two-body thing?"

"Who's Myra?" he heard from the kitchen, at the same time he got a confused whine from Lex.

"Myra's the gypsy," Clark called out. "And girl-weres have two bodies: one human, one wolf. It's why you have to eat in both bodies, Lex, and why all that other stuff is so different from the male-were stuff. Didn't Myra tell you?" he said.

"Why would his gypsy-friend give him the girl talk when he was planning on tossing Tess to the wolves?" Lois called out, as she padded her back into the living room with two cups of hot cocoa. The look Lex gave him as he craned his neck around and up at him pretty much cinched Lois' explanation.

"Lex..." Clark breathed out in frustration, because sure the gypsy had explained some stuff to him about all the girl-were stuff, but somehow he doubted she'd explained absolutely _everything_ Lex would need to know in those few thirty minutes or so. What had happened to the Lex Luthor who wanted to understand, to _know_ absolutely everything he could about everything and anything? ...Had he really not believed he'd had enough time to learn what he'd needed and wanted to know before the whole become-a-werewolf get-rid-of-Tess ceremony?

Well, there was nothing for it; Lex was just going to have to learn it all after the fact. Clark finished getting Lex out of the human clothing, then said, "Now stretch out a bit so I can see how you're healing."

Lois set the second mug of hot chocolate down on the coffee table for Clark and curled up in the recliner with her own mug to watch while he made himself busy removing bandages, cleaning healing bite-marks and claw-wounds, and sanitizing new cloth bandages before finally applying them all over again -- and loosely enough that Lex wouldn't end up hurt if he changed while still wrapped up in them.

Lex was pretty silent throughout the whole process, and when Clark got up to throw out the dirty bandages and other used supplies, Lois got up and sat down on the edge of the couch near Lex.

"Y'know, baldy," she started, "I think I like you better this way. All quiet and fluffy," she said in a calculated, light tone of voice.

Lex eyed her.

"Actually, you're kind of like a dog, more than a wolf."

Lex's eyes narrowed.

Lois grinned. "Hey, maybe even better!" she said. "'Cause I don't think I'm allergic to _you_. Not when you're like this, anyway," she said, her grin getting wider. Then she snapped her fingers. "I know!" she exclaimed brightly. "Maybe if you're _really_ good, we'll even keep you. --Hey Clark," she called out over her shoulder, while not looking away from Lex-the-girl-wolf, "think we should keep her?"

"Lois..." Clark started, as Lex just about bristled next to her.

"Aw, c'mon, he's just _so cute_ like this! All girly and _demure_ ," she grinned an evin grin. "I don't like the name 'Lex' though -- too overdone," she said, continuing on over the cliff. "Let's call him Kujo."

Lex's ears went down flat against his lupine skull and he growled at her.

"See?" Lois said, reaching out a hand abruptly and rubbing the top of his head side-to-side vigorously. "We're getting along great already," she grinned as Lex suddenly looked confused all over again at the quasi-comraderie, and torn between snapping at her, ignoring her antics, or doing some other third unspecified thing that he couldn't really think of right at that moment. Then Lois lowered her head down a bit. "After all, he knows that there's only one alpha bitch in this house, and that's me, _right Lex?_ " she ended, her grin suddenly more teeth than smile.

Lex twitched, but kept staring her in the eyes and emitting an almost subaudal growl as she kept rubbing the top of his head like she wasn't ever planning on stopping.

Clark sighed and caught her hand, pulling her up to her feet and ending the staring-rubbing-not-reacting stalemate. "Look, why don't you both just chill out, and I'll make steak for dinner, okay? It's not like you two are on an even keel to be going at each other, anyway," he continued as he started walking into the kitchen, not letting go of Lois' hand, dragging her along after him and effectively separating the two of them by all of eight feet of open air. Yay him.

"Hey, what the hell is that supposed to mean, Smallville?" Lois demanded, with a similarly-toned huff of annoyance from Lex.

"Well, for starters, you're kind of an alpha; he's an omega," Clak said. at the twin pair of confused looks, he added, "Uh, you're kind of the _fighting_ leader, and he's more of the peacetime, in-the-camp, day-to-day stuff one? ...Totally different, nonoverlapping pack roles," he ended, when they still kept staring at him like he was out of his mind, which was weird, because when the gypsy had explained it to him, _he'd_ understood it just fine. How did this not make perfect sense?

"...You know, I'm not sure which of us should be more offended," Lois declared as an aside to Lex, crossing her arms, after Clark let her tug herself free from his grasp.

"So Lex is part of the sisterhood now?" Clark lightly teased. "Good to know." Then he turned towards the stove, because it was easier to not-laugh when he wasn't staring at Lois' dumbfounded look straight-on.

Lex snorted in obvious amusement.

"Oh, shut up, furball," Lois shot back at Lex, rolling her eyes. "You just _wish_ you were as awesome as us Sullivan-Lanes. I think I really do like you better quiet as a mouse."

Lex's eyes narrowed, then he paused, cocking his head, then let out a series of odd barks and light growls in a very intelligent-being language-like cadence.

Lois stared back over her shoulder at him. "...Huh?"

Lex sat there on the couch, almost primly, ears up, looking at her innocently.

Clark got it first, and he was hard-put not to laugh as Lois _glared_ at Lex and pointed her finger at him.

"Just you wait," she half-threatened, half-promised. "I'm gonna get ahold of Zatanna and get her to give me a werewolf-speech spell, and then we'll see who has the last laugh!"

Lex just snorted, and gave a huffing laugh, then set his head down on his paws again, ears and tail twitching in amusement.

"Bitch," Lois muttered, and Clark couldn't help but laugh weakly at that, then cover his mouth, because if he laughed like he really wanted to, he'd probably need to replace the windows.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lois and Lex were both a _lot_ happier and agreeable when full of good food, Clark was happy himself to find.

They were all curled up in various chairs and sofas in the living room, just relaxing and enjoying the evening off, when Clark heard something out by the back forty and his head snapped up.

So did Lex's.

"What's wrong?" Lois asked, frowning, and then the howling started.

"Shit," Lois cursed under her breath as she jumped to her feet, shoving her laptop onto the coffee table and slamming the lid closed. "That bitch. She didn't!"

"Lois?" Clark asked tentatively, as Lex hunkered down into the couch and was trying not to whimper.

"Damn it," Lois said, shaking her head angrily. "I ran into her again this afternoon, Clark. After talking to you." She grimaced. "I must not have asked enough questions after Lex."

"She knew you knew where he was and followed you here," Clark said under his breath grimly, as he x-rayed out the back of the house, and saw several weres -- or what he assumed were weres -- gathering at the farm's periphery, out by where Lex's blood trail ended. "Or they just finally followed the blood trail all the way," he ended, as he realized without much shock that Tess was out there in the middle of them.

"C'mon, Smallville; give!" Lois said, making a c'mere motion.

Clark hesitated, but at her insistent look, he sighed and headed for the small storage space above the hallway. He pulled off the painted panel and grabbed his dad's rifle, sliding it out of the space and tossing it to Lois, who caught it easily. He rummaged around for the box of bullets next, as Lois hefted the gun, then checked the barrel for blockages and then down along the sights.

Lex's eyes got wide as he watched this.

"Really, Smallville? Only the one box?" Lois griped as he walked back in and handed it over to her.

"Well, I didn't think I'd be needing it," Clark told her, frowning. Frankly, she was lucky that it was one of the first things he'd done when he'd 'moved back in' to the place. ...Well, that, and figured out some basic furniture. The bedframes and some other things he'd been able to make out of wood, but the couch and upholstered chairs had been tricky on short notice; he'd only been able to get the one mattress just the night before.

"And, Murphy's Law, because you didn't think you needed it, you needed it," Lois said like that was the paragon of reason, as she slammed a bullet home into the chamber.

Clark winced.

Lex was beginning to look _really_ nervous.

"Oh, chill, White Fang," Lois told Lex. "Don't bite me, and I won't shoot you. Simple. Got it?"

"How many names are you going to go through with him?" Clark wondered out loud as he watched Lois prepare herself, and another chorus of howls sounded out.

"As many as I need until I find one that stick, Smallville," she smiled thin-lipped, then looked up at him. "Hey, do I need to hit these rapist bastards with silver to mke them hurt?"

"No, that's just a myth, apparently," Clark told her, and he was only a little surprised when Lois nodded, grabbed her laptop bag, and upended it onto the couch. He had to bite his lip to keep from smiling when she started strapping various knives and other weapon-like implements to her person, and Lex tried to slowly inch his way over to the opposite side of the couch, as far away from her as possible while looking casual and unconcerned about it. ...not that he was able to pull it off, with the way his ears kept flicking about and the way his muscles were bunching up with nervous tension. He clearly wasn't as able to affect whatever manner he wanted to project as a wolf, yet.

"Stupid homicidal bitch," Lois muttered as the howls rang out a third time. "You want to have a talk with her, or should I?" Lois said, cocking a handgun.

Hmmm. A heavily-armed, very angry Lois in the vicinity of Tess Mercer. Clark had to think about that one for all of two microseconds.

"--I'll do it," he said quickly, and Lois just grunted as she finished arming-up and hefted his dad's old rifle again. "Just be careful -- male weres can change whenever they want once they've learned how, and they're all well-versed in the change, apparently."

"Yeah, yeah. Shoo, Smallville," Lois told him. "I'll hold down the fort here."

Clark heard Lex give a confused whine as he headed out the back door; he listened in with super-hearing as he shut and locked the door behind him.

"Oh, don't worry about it," he heard Lois tell Lex. "I'm the _fighting_ -alpha, remember? You just sit right there and look pretty, princess," he heard her say through a grin.

There was a pause, then: "Oh, you meant Tess! Hah! ...What? _She's_ not part of the sisterhood. Just because I had to make nice with her from time to time doesn't mean we were _friends_. Woman's practically the definition of crazy. I've _never_ liked her."

Clark shook his head, and focused on the group over by the fence. He tromped over to them, noting that they were all still on the opposite side.

They also began backing away as he approached, first the wolves closest to him, and then the rest backed up several steps when the wind shifted.

All except Tess.

...Clark suddenly realized that it probably wasn't _Shelby_ that they'd all been smelling, that had warned them off of entering his town.

Tess turned from trying to convince her packmates to go over the fence and met Clark's eyes with a glare and a low growl, which the others began to take up.

"Shut up," Clark barked out, and they all went silent but Tess, who laughed once instead, wild-eyed and buck naked. He ignored their various states of fur and undress; he'd stopped being self-conscious about things like that when he'd started wearing tights.

"Get off my property," Clark told them all.

"We're not _on_ your property," Tess said, bemused.

"Actually, you are," Clark informed her coldly. "It's generally neighborly to leave a good five to ten feet between property lines when putting down the fences," he said, as he put a hand down and casually vaulted the fence.

The pack backed up.

Tess didn't.

"You have something of mine," Tess said haughtily.

"No, _you_ tried to steal something of _mine_ ," Clark said evenly. "Lex is my omega, my opposite number; always has been."

He heard the murmuring start.

"That little bitch isn't an omega; a beta playing at being an alpha at best, _maybe_!" she spat out hurriedly.

Clark started to smirk. Apparently she'd gotten a crash course in pack dynamics at some point in the past twenty-four hours or so.

Too bad for Tess, _he'd_ spent the morning learning from the master, herself. He doubted the gypsy woman would do more than curse and hit Tess with a broom if she ever saw her again.

"Oh, I _really_ don't think you want to get in an argument with me over it," Clark said easily. "See, he's been part of my pack for quite some time," he said, pacing forward at a slow and leisurely lope, "and you, you sad, stupid little upstart, see I've got a good thing going with _my_ pack," Clark said, letting his voice drop to a growl, "and you think you'll be able to get in my good graces by _killing my omega?!?_ " he snarled out, with all the frustration he'd been feeling about everything since she'd mindwiped Lex.

"He _isn't--_ " she hissed, head coming down and shoulders coming up.

"I am alpha; so is my mate," Clark cut her off. "They can smell it; I know _you_ can too, _if_ you're any proper sort of alpha," he taunted, circling her at a three-foot distance. The rest of her stolen pack went still as stone. " _She_ recognizes Lex as omega; so do I. No more needs saying," he tossed out, unconcerned with her incorrect assessment, completing his circle with his back once again to the fence to his property. "This is my property," he said, taking a step forward. "This _town_ is my territory." He took another step. "Get. Out. I _won't_ warn you again," he ended, leaning forward and baring his incisor-fangs in her face.

Tess laughed again, right in his face, looking self-assured, and that was when Clark realized -- she really didn't get it. This was a fight between alphas; her pack wasn't going to help her. Worse, she was challenging his _home-pack-mate-life_ , and Clark's entire _being_ was thrumming with the beat of _anger-power- **rage**_ at her presumptiveness. He'd had no trouble understanding _pack-brother-opposite-self- **mine**_ when the gypsy had explained it to him; he'd known it all along, deep-down. He'd just never had the **words** for it all.

And here Tess stood, challenging him _to his face_ for **Lex** , and this was an affront that he would not stand.

So Clark closed his eyes, and purposefully let go of any trace of anything he'd ever learned to call civility.

He let the predator out.

He snapped his eyes open, and let his lips curl up in a natural snarl.

He backhanded Tess casually, and watched her spin away and hit the ground, hard.

And then he bared his teeth and let out an absolutley inhuman _**ROAR**_.

...Tess and her broken pack scattered.

They left Clark standing there, in the night, under the cold, clear sky, with a red haze marring his vision.

He clenched his fists, and resisted the urge to run after each and every one of them all and pound them down into the dust.

...It got easier after he closed his eyes.

He stood there and breathed for awhile.

He tilted his head back and let the cool air slide into his lungs, once he could finally _feel_ the cold again, rather than just panting with fury.

And he slowly shoved back down every last thing that he usually only ever let himself feel when he was on the Red.

Eventually, he was enough himself again -- Clark Kent, his normal, sane, everyday _human_ self -- to turn and walk back to the farmhouse, and let himself back inside.

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Everything ok?" Lois greeted him with as he entered the farmhouse.

Clark just nodded once, glancing over at Lex.

Lex was watching him from the couch. He didn't look overly concerned, just maybe a little curious, a little thoughtful.

Clark wondered how good "very good" hearing was, when it came to weres.

He also wondered if Lex would remember any of this clearly in the morning, this time.

There was noise at the front door, and Lois whirled with the gun, intent.

Clark was over in a flash, and opened it.

...A young man yelped and fell backwards, startled.

Clark blinked down at the dirt-covered teenager.

"Ummm, hi?" the kid said. "Is our om-m-mega here?" he asked brightly, with a grin.

Clark stared at him for a moment, then glanced around at the other young men in the motley crew of weres gathered at his front stoop.

None of them looked particularly fearful. If anything, they all looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, even the ones currently without fur.

"'Bout time you opened the door," the gypsy woman said, elbowing her way in.

Clark stepped aside abruptly.

"Got any tea?" she asked, looking up at Clark with a thousand-yard stare.

"Hello to you, too, Myra," Clark said, caught between confusion and amusement. Amusement quickly fled when Lex reflexively hunkered down on the couch -- clearly he hadn't forgotten whatever accidental hits had landed on him at the beating the old gypsy had doled out the night previous.

"Hm," said Myra, showing herself to the kitchen.

"So, can we see our omega now?" he heard eagerly from the young man who had been knocking, and was currently poking his head around the frame of the front door.

"Put on some pants, then we'll see," Lois ordered, coming up to the doorway with the rifle shouldered for now.

The young men looked up at her with wide eyes.

"Go on now; march!" she commanded.

"Lex would really like it if you did," Clark added, coming up to Lois' shoulder.

That got the entire pack of them moving. A couple of them even cheered "yay!"

Lois snorted.

"Well, it's true," Clark shrugged, turning and going back inside.

"Great..." Lois said under her breath.

"I think you lot will do well together," Myra informed him as he came into the kitchen and put the kettle on. "You're a good fit, you and them."

"What?" Clark said, sitting down in a chair next to her. "They're not--"

And then he had to pause and grimace, because he'd basically formally declared Lex as part of his pack-family, right alongside Lois, and if those kids out there claimed Lex...

Then it actually hit him what that might actually _mean_.

Myra chuckled.

Clark glared.

"Congratulations, pack-brother," Myra told him, and she pulled out a small handbound book and slid it across the table to him, with a toothy grin. "Welcome to the tribe. Figured you were more of a bookish sort, so I wrote it down for you... and that one," she added like it was an afterthought, nodding her head back at Lex.

Clark looked down at it like it was a snake that wanted to bite him... and might actually get through his skin.

"How did you..." Clark started quietly.

"...know?" she finished for him. "The change might've gone with my menses, but my hearing and smell are as sharp as ever," she told him. "I can still hear the thrum," she grinned, "and you're a pack-predator if I've ever met one," she said, poking him in the chest with a bony finger.

Clark couldn't hardly grimace at the assessment. He did enjoy running in packs... when they were ones he belonged in... or felt a sense of belonging _with_. The football team. The League. The Kents and Lanes, and oh, boy, did _that_ explain a lot with Lois' alpha-dad, yikes. And then there was Chloe. And Lex. And...

"Think Lucy might be able to straighten out the rogue pack?" Clark blurted out without thinking. _That, or run them ragged trying to keep up with her...?_

"Don't know; never met a Lucy," Myra told him with a wicked gleam in her eye, and Clark stifled a groan.

"Is that all of them?" he asked. Most were teenaged boys; none looked to be younger than fifteen, nor older than twenty.

"There're a few in the caravan," Myra told him, as he poured her a cup. She warmed her hands around it. "Got torn up pretty bad; did what I could for them. They're the older ones, some twenty or so, a very few nearer thirty," she told him.

"I have a friend who's a doctor; I can call him in," Clark told her, thinking of Emil. With any luck, he'd get to him before Tess thought to. "They're gonna need schooling, aren't they."

"Haven't had much," Myra said with a sigh. "The old leadership didn't hold much truck with the outside world. They were very old-world gypsy that way."

Huh. "You didn't approve?"

Myra gave him a long look. "This isn't the old country, and they at least ought to understand enough to make the choice to stay or go, not to mention how to survive in it, either way." She looked down at her tea, suddenly seeming horribly old and very weary. "Times are changing. We need to adapt, or we'll all die out, and our way of life with us."

"...And they thought the 'way of life' meant never changing," Clark said slowly.

Myra snorted. "We're gypsies, caravans and movement and no need for roots we don't need. We're all change; they forgot this."

"And what about the roots you do need?" Clark asked carefully.

The old gypsy woman smirked up at him over the lip of her cup. "You're pretty quick, for an alpha. We could use a smart one, for once." She glanced back at Lois, who was handling the young weres as easily as a drill seargent with a group of new charges. "Or two."

Clark glanced back and smiled, then looked over at Lex. He seemed pretty unperturbed, just slightly confused, and only a little wary in the face of all the positive attention he was getting. He had a ring of twenty-somethings sitting on the floor in front of the couch in a loose ring, all watching him as curiously as he was watching them. They looked nothing but happy to be in Lex's presence, eager to please, and perfectly willing to give him his personal space, like it was no great hardship one way or the other, just things as it should be.

Clark sighed out in relief, and let some of the tension spill out of him.

"I think we might be able to get them into school; they really should have some formal education," Clark said. "I can probably tap some of the Kawatche to help out in getting them acclimated," he realized.

"Hm. Those skinwalkers? They always seemed a bit weird to me, but I guess if you think that's best," Myra shrugged, then took a sip of her tea.

"I'm not about to try and combine the two packs," Clark said almost immediately. He'd ever felt wholly comfortable around the Kawatche, either. He'd always thought that it had been the way Kyla had talked about destiny, and all that, but really, when it came down to it, it was probably the Kryptonian blood they had in them, however weak it was. He'd _never_ really gotten along with other Kryptonians, or they him. Kara had made the effort, but he knew that they'd grated on each other. The only exception for him had been Raya, but she hadn't felt quite the same way about him, distant for some reason to do with being too long in the Zone.

Myra nodded, ceding to his best judgment, and Clark propped his head up on a fist.

"I guess I could see about getting some more livestock and teach them a bit about farming," Clark said. It would help with the upkeep of the farm, give them a wide open space to live and run in, and... "Lex knows about ranch work with horses, tame and wild. We could work up to that, and some of them could go off in cycles, be more free in their roaming." He thought about roundups, free grazing, and cattle drives -- they'd have to travel off farther west for some of the better public grazing land, but that would get them moving and farther away from the cities. But if that was what some of them wanted, something closer to the so-called 'gypsy movement' ideal...? It could work.

He looked up again, watching Lois and Lex interact with the pack just fine, looking more relaxed than he'd seen either of them in awhile. Lois was certainly in her element, and Lex... once he was fully acclimated to the change, well, Clark could easily see him telling stories, teaching history lessons with a ring of kids around him, listening to him in wide-eyed rapture. --Yeah, this could work.

...Well, except that, "I don't know what to do about Shelby. Um, my dog," Clark told the gypsy.

"What about him?"

"Well, I don't want there to be any trouble between him and the other wolves--"

"Why would there be?" Myra said, looking at ease.

Clark blinked at her, then started to explain about how Shelby had cornered Lex in the horse stall.

"Did they hurt each other?" Myra asked.

"Uh..." Well, now that Clark thought about it... "Actually, no, come to think of it, I don't think any of Lex's really bad wounds were from my dog, and I don't think Lex got in more than a scratch or two. But Shelby was pretty aggressive with him, though."

"Smart dog," Myra said with a smile. Clark frowned at her. "Well," she said, slowly setting down her cup, "Do you think _that one_ would have stayed put if your dog hadn't cornered him in there, the state he was in?" she said, nodding back towards Lex.

Clark blinked. "No," he admitted, and then realized that, yeah, if Lex had run out of there, he probably wouldn't have pursued him either, not having known it was him or anything of what had been going on. He'd only gotten involved, really, because Shelby had pushed the issue.

"I think I owe Shelby an apology," Clark said, feeling a little embarrassed.

"Mm." The old gypsy woman just smiled up at him as he stood and went over to the phone -- first, to call Emil, then to get in touch with his contacts in the Kawatche tribe, and then...

Well, a trip to the grocery store wouldn't hurt. They didn't have _that_ much food in the house, Clark noted as he did a quick headcount. It wasn't _quite_ too late for a trip to the main street stores, just yet, and they certainly had enough hands for carrying...

Clark looked around, inside and out, and softly smiled to himself. Yeah, this could work.

~*~*~*~*~*~


End file.
